Habyt (fka Projects Co-Living), a proptech startup, raised 20 million euros from Holtzbrink, Vorwerk, P101, Italia 500, part of Milan-listed Azimut Libera Impresa, and Picus Capital (See here a previous post by BeBeez). Habyt raised a total of 26 million since Luca Bovone and Giorgio Ciancaleoni founded it in 2017.
Italian e-vendor of cars brumbrum carried on a 65 million euros securitization for financing car acquisitions after having attracted a 3 million euros investment by DIP Capital (see here a previous post by BeBeez). brumbrum’s founders also bought back the stake that seed investor Alberto Genovese owned as he is facing personal criminal allegations. The company set the spv brumbrum Rent which issued 50 million euros of senior abs that Oaktree Capital Management and P&G subscribed. The company itself acquired the 15 million junior notes. Francesco Banfi and Roberto Testore founded brumbrum in 2017.
OCS, a publisher of software for financial services firms of which Charme owns a controlling stake, acquired a minority of Datrix, an Italian AI scaleup (see here a previous post by BeBeez). Ocs invested out of a 2.5 million euros capital increase that Datrix opened and is dedicated to its coming commercial partners. Datrix was born at the end of 2018 out of the merger of Finscience with 3rd Place. Fabrizio Milano D’Aragona, Mauro Arte, Claudio Zamboni, and Alessandro Arrigo founded Finscience in 2017. Milano D’Aragona, Arte and Zamboni founded 3rdPlace in 2010. OCS has sales of 27.2 million, an ebitda of 18 million and net profits of 16.8 million.
Letsell, an Italian scaleup provider of e-commerce sites, aims to raise 3 million euros and already attracted one million from LIFTT (see here a previous post by BeBeez). Finbeauty poured 500k euros in Letsell which is born in 2017 as a spinoff of Brandsdistribution.
Cdp Venture Capital sgr launched a call for CyberXcelerator, a three-years acceleration programme for cybertech and artificial intelligence startups (see here a previous post by BeBeez). CyberXcelerator has resources of above 5 million euros (2.5 millions from Cdp Venture Capital and Startup Wise Guys, 2 millions in follow-on and 0.6 million from the project’s industrial partners). Università della Calabria will manage CyberXcelerator through its incubator TechNest and with the support of Milan-listed defence and aerospace firm Leonardo, Italgas and NTT DATA. CyberXcelerator will shortlist 30 Italian and foreign startup that aim to open a bureau in Italy.
Italian e-retailer of wine Winelivery expanded its activity to the wine tasting tourism and launched the unit Gite in Cantina (see here a previous post by BeBeez). Winelivery previously received a 2.5 million euros a convertible financing facility from Intesa Sanpaolo. In July 2019, the company closed a bridge round of 1.5 million and attracted resources from GDI (Gellify Digital Investment), which acquired a minority of the company in January 2020. Francesco Magro and Andrea Antinori founded Winelivery in 2016. The company also closed three equity crowdfunding campaigns on CrowdFundMe: 0.15 million in May 2017 (pre-money value of 1.2 million); 0.4 million in January 2018 (pre-money value of 3.2 million), and more than 1.2 million in January 2019 (pre-money value of 7.2 million).
In 2020, the amount of incubators in Italy grew by 8%, from 197 to 212, said a report of the Social Innovation Monitor of Politecnico di Torino (see here a previous post by BeBeez). The majority (57%) of them is based in the North of Italy, especially in Lombardy (26%). These incubators generate an aggregate turnover of 373 million.
Socialbeat, an Italian startup that supports journalists for monitoring real time news, received a 600k euros grant from Invitalia’s contest Smart&Start (see here a previous post by BeBeez). Socialbeat also received a 150k euros non-repayable financing from Stadiem and will invest such resources in financing a project worth 750k euros. In 2018, the company attracted a grant financing of 400k euros from Google Digital News Initiative a programme of Google, Sesaab and Accenture Italia. Marco Sangalli, Vitantonio Santoro and Mirko Vairo founded Socialbeat in 2017. For 2021, the company aims to generate sales of 500k euros.
Israeli agritech Tevel Aerobotics Technologies raised 20 million US Dollars (see here a previous post by BeBeez). Tevel attracted the resources of Italy’s Club degli Investitori (0.74 million), Kubota, Forbon, Maverick Ventures Israel, OurCrowd, AgFunder, Ziv Aviram, and Amichai Steimberg. Tevel is mulling to start its activities in Italy. Yaniv Maor is the ceo and founder of the firm.
Italian producer of vegetal hamburgers BioMadre raised 350k euros from Fondazione Social Venture Giordano Dell’Amore (200k euros) and a|impact (150k euros) (see here a previous post by BeBeez). The investors signed an option for pouring further money in the business in 2022. Marco Macchi and Alessandra Abordi founded Biomadre in 2015.
